Jalen Rose played on the Fab Five squad while attending Michigan, and he doesn’t want any other collection of athletes to borrow the nickname. Rose blames the media — which, as a talking head, he is now a part of — for lazily bestowing the monicker onto the U.S. gymnasts. Per CBS: “Jalen Rose wants it to be very clear: He loves the US Olympic Team. He rooted for them. And he’s a true admirer of Gabby Douglas and her class, composure and athleticism. He’s just not a fan of the team nickname. And he also knows that it was not the five gymnasts who chose it. Rose blames the ‘lazy media’ for not coming up with an original nickname for the gold medalists. […] ‘To use the nickname just points and screams of lazy journalism by the national media, that’s really what it is,’ Rose said. ‘It’s no fault at all of the young gymnasts. But I really wish they would have come up with an even more creative tag for them and their gold medal pursuit.’ No one’s really sure where the original Fab Five nickname originated, but the players who broke ground with their numbers and their baggy shorts street style on the court, embraced it. ‘Once the media decides what they’re going to call you, that’s your name,’ Rose said. ‘I’ve heard they (gymnasts) wanted to be called ‘Furious Five’ or something different which leads me to believe that’s a tag the media put on them.'”

Last Sunday, ESPN aired a tremendous documentary about Michigan‘s famed Fab Five team. One of the most compelling — and hilarious — parts of the doc was when Jalen Rose and his teammates told the world what their teenage selves used to think of Grant Hill and the Duke Blue Devils.

It was a sad and somewhat pathetic turn of events, therefore, to see friends narrating this interesting documentary about their moment in time and calling me a bitch and worse, calling all black players at Duke “Uncle Toms” and, to some degree, disparaging my parents for their education, work ethic and commitment to each other and to me. I should have guessed there was something regrettable in the documentary when I received a Twitter apology from Jalen before its premiere. I am aware Jalen has gone to some length to explain his remarks about my family in numerous interviews, so I believe he has some admiration for them.

In his garbled but sweeping comment that Duke recruits only “black players that were ‘Uncle Toms,’ ” Jalen seems to change the usual meaning of those very vitriolic words into his own meaning, i.e., blacks from two-parent, middle-class families. He leaves us all guessing exactly what he believes today.

I caution my fabulous five friends to avoid stereotyping me and others they do not know in much the same way so many people stereotyped them back then for their appearance and swagger. I wish for you the restoration of the bond that made you friends, brothers and icons. I am proud of my family. I am proud of my Duke championships and all my Duke teammates. And, I am proud I never lost a game against the Fab Five.

Game.Set.Match. That ending was killer.

I think Hill might’ve missed the point that Rose and his teammates were trying to convey: mainly, that this is what they thought of Duke and its players back then, as very young men. Nevertheless, it’s a very strong response from Grant Hill.